February 13, 2007

Terrorism in Salt Lake City?

Wow. Remember, do not question his motives. I dunno if the fact that Sulejman Talovic is a Muslim refugee has anything to do with this vile act, but since we are kind of at war with the jihadis, it does seem like a good place to start.

We should also remember that the Islamist message boards have been encouraging potential jihadis to keep it simple. Also, it's important to think about the role of the internet in creating "virtual cells" of mujahideen. That is, jihadis who may never physically meet or formally join an terror organization, but who encourage one another to do acts of violence.

As I've mentioned here many times before, the present structure of the Salafi jihadi movement is such that any one can now claim to be al Qaeda. Although the formal organizations of al Qaeda 1.0 (bin Laden, Zawahiri) and 2.0 (Zarqawi/al Masri in Iraq/ -- GSPC/al Qaeda in Algeria) remain a threat, this "al Qaeda 3.0" is more of a movement than it is of an organization. And thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of young Muslim men in the West sympathize with that movement.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank said Talovic drove his car to the mall, parked in the west parking terrace and encountered two people who he shot before entering the mall.

There, he encountered a female who also was shot right away, then went into a gift shop where there were five people, all of whom the young man shot. Moving through the mall, the gunman tried to shoot others, Burbank said. The chief said he could not say now how many shots were involved in the entire episode.

Burbank praised an unnamed Ogden police officer who took action at the mall to intervene in the incident, and praised the many law enforcement and other agencies that responded quickly and professionally to the crisis.

Until Salt Lake police arrived, it was "basically a shoot-out between the Ogden individual and this individual," Burbank said.

Ogden is a little too far out to be considered a "suburb", but we're all lucky this off-duty cop came to the mall to do some shopping. More:

"As you can see, this individual was well-prepared," Burbank said, apparently referring to the young man's backpack filled with ammunition "He had one purpose."

Six individuals died and four others were hospitalized. Currently, four Salt Lake City police officers are on administrative leave, as is the Ogden police officer.

You'll notice that the more conservative leaning Deseret News is silent as to what might possibly have motivated Sulejman, while the more liberal Salt Lake Tribune goes through a number of possible motivations, none of which include "killing the infidel".

I have relatives who live in Salt Lake, I'm glad none of them were hurt.